Cabin fever overwhelmed us today. After two hard weeks of winter with the temperature lightening and the sky brightening, we made the move to see if we could find some larch turning gold in the Rockies today . . . . . even though the skies over in that westerly direction were still ominious.

It was a hard, hard slog up to Ptarmigan Cirque, altitude about 8,000 feet, for Abby and Keeper with very few footprints helping guide us on a path through the variously deepening snow . . . . . probably didn't help that I'd run an hour and half in the morning before setting out on this.

Below, Keeper was indominatable through stops and starts as she coaxed herself to the top . . . .

Below, Abby was her usual invincible self. Both Abby and Keeper are the same age but, at 11 now, are aging very differently with Keeper's difficulty with cancer last year noticeably slowing her. But winter helps a lot with her energy.

Below, Abby blazes her own way . . . . . we were the only folks up here.

Below, the sun peaks through just for a moment, illuminating larch turning gold.

It was a weird day . . . . . eight above at my house, zero in Okotoks a few hundred feet lower, nine above at the county dump when I stopped there, a few hundred feet higher than town, 11 above on another hill, then three above as I began my run this morning near Black Diamond.

And about 10 above on the walk above, in spite of the snow and darkness.

The tragedy of the early spate of winter - dipping down to 20 below zero at one point - was evident on the drive out . . . . . we will not have much in the way of Fall colours this year as the Poplars along the Foothills of the Rockies, just beginning to lighten up in autumn, froze solid in their green state and now have only withered, brownish leaves that will soon drop to the ground.